


Dignity at Dawn

by SouthernLolita



Series: GamaFrost Tales [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Assisted Suicide, Cancer, Doctor/Patient, Euthanasia, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Graphic Description, I Made Myself Cry, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Loki Angst, Loki Feels, Loki Needs a Hug, M/M, Poor Loki, Sickfic, Terminal Illnesses, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, no grammar Nazis, terminal care facility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-07-25 14:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7536043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernLolita/pseuds/SouthernLolita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People say you should live your life the way you want to, they tell you that the world is your oyster and the sky is the limit. You grow up learning that the choices you make shape that you are and the legacy you leave. Everyone seems to know (or think they know) how best to live a better life. Yet no one seems to have an answer on if you get that same luxury in ending it.  </p><p>Loki was told he had potential, that he had promise. That was then and this is now, because now... he's dying. Life has become a series of painful treatments with no hope in sight and all he wants to do is have a little dignity in the end. He thinks (hopes) that this young Doctor named Bruce can help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preface & Cover

 

I would like to thank you all for taking interest in reading this work. If you have read some of my other stories then you know I like looking at topics that some might turn away from. One such topic you are about to explore in this work of Fan-Fiction is Euthanasia. Also known as "assisted suicide", I realize this may be a sensitive subject for some and urge you to abstain from this Fic if you feel this subject matter maybe too much for you. It is never my intention to cause anyone any distress through my work.  
  
With that said, I will do my best to represent both sides of the argument through the characters. Please be aware that the thoughts and feelings of the characters as expressed in the following chapters may/may not be my own.  I will strive to set aside any of my own bias on the subject to give an equal amount presence to opposing viewpoints. I in fact chose this topic based on a debated lecture I attended over the summer. I found the discussion very thought provoking and this is my way of bringing such a topic to light in a format were it could be easier to digest. As always I hope that stories like this get people talking and discussing new things.   
  
The pairing within this Fic will be based more so on emotional connection than physical. The mature rating is due to language and discussions of death, depression, terminal illness, and suicide.   
  
Once again, Thank you for voting, following, kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions and comment (depending on the platform from which you reading) on this fan-Fic. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Posts will begin in the next few days.


	2. I got my ticket for the long way round.

  
Loki Odinson was 25 when all of this started. When you’re 25, you know already that you’re not a child any longer. You having been for a long time, yet being an adult still seems like a boring notion years away. This is a time to go out into the world and capture your dreams. To live your truth, reach higher, run faster and howl at the moon.   
  
 Just like many young men his age he was out enjoying his independence, having moved from the gilded suburbs and into the bustling life of the city. Enjoying this new found freedom and of course it was not without its challenges, he had to find a job and place to live. The job was at a small bookshop, an older man looking to retire had owned it and Loki just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Now taking over a management position in the shop and using some of his new ideas to drum up business.   
  
Loki loved working in the shop, spending his days around the written word, the smell of ink and leather bindings. He loved most the shipments of antique books and coveted first editions. As literature major, he was right at home among the stacks. Since he had taken over the daily operations, he’d doubled sales through social media and making offers to local writers to carry short manuscripts on consignment. Loki was good at convincing people to do things; his friends back at university had often called him ’silver-tongue’ with good reason.   
  
As his work flourished, he was also able to find a small flat and took out an add in the local paper for a flat mate.  
  
The following week was spent interviewing potentials until he found someone that he didn't want to strangle. Which, anyone who knew Loki would tell you that were a hard sell? The ravenette was as fickle as a spoiled cat, people were either taken with him right way or couldn’t stand him and visa-verse.   
  
Luck seemed to be on his side once again, Loki settled on a young German medical student named Kurt Wagner. Wagner was quiet and intelligent, better than some of the others Loki had met. From there he and Kurt shook on the rent agreement and the next day the med student moved in. The two got on well; Loki enjoyed their conversations and the fact that Kurt was very non-judgmental. It seemed like for once everything was coming up roses for Loki.  
  
Good job, nice flat, great roommate, now all he needed was to get back out in the dating scene and find someone to share his free time with.

* * *

  
Loki had attended a few mixers and blind dates, his brother tried to set him up with a couple of blokes from his work. Thank God his family was so supportive... or not. Depending on how you looked at it, there was such a thing as ‘too supportive’.  
  
It was awkward enough having 'the talk" with your parents, but for some reason a 10-year-old Loki had found that moment to blurt out that he liked boys. Looking back, he was almost sure that was the moment that turned his father's hair white.  
  
However, even if things had been difficult at first they did get better. An ounce of denial could go along way for some people. Odin would still smile every holiday and ask his sons to 'bring home a wife'. Frigga would instantly jump in chirping 'or a husband!'  
  
Bless her.  
  
Loki actually had one such date tonight but he hadn't felt up to it. Calling to cancel because of a headache sounded like a lame excuse…but what can you do? He wasn’t about to sit through a night of ‘getting to know you’ chatter while his skull felt like it was being jack hammered from the inside out. There wasn’t enough wine in the whole city for that.   
  
It seemed like he'd been having these migraines a lot recently, chalking it up to stress or maybe trying to read in poor light. Still, it just seemed to be getting worse and others were starting to notice as well.

* * *

  
"Loki...are you well?" Kurt knocked on the bathroom door, he'd come home to the sound of retching and that was never a good sign, considering it was the third time this week.  
  
He'd started noticing Loki's headaches about a month after he moved in, and in the past year the migraines his friend was victim to appear to be growing worse. It was troubling to say the least. Yet no matter what he said, Loki always had an excuse or some cutting remark about how Kurt ‘wasn’t a doctor yet’.  Not that the former took any of his flat mates anger to heart.  On most occasions, Loki’s bark was worse than his bite.   
  
"Fine...go away."  
  
"You don't sound fine."  
  
"And your accent sounds grating and yet I put up with that. Now bugger off!"  
  
Kurt was pretty used to this song and dance; Loki would lash out then come out later looking like a soaked kitten. Wrapped in a blanket and looking for someone to pay attention to him.  "I'll make some tea."   
  
As always - Loki emerged a while later for his tea before grumbling a thank you and heading to bed. Kurt would check on him a few more times before heading to night job as a specimen’s messenger for the hospital lab. His ill friend in the back of his mind.  
  


* * *

  
It was a few weeks later when Loki noticed how hard it had been to get out of bed lately. He felt tired constantly and his muscles seemed to feel reluctant to respond to his demands of them. Perhaps his mattress was wrong or he'd over extended while putting away some books on a high shelf. There could have been a thousand reasons. Maybe he was depressed or even that rather questionable curry that they had last night. He would be fine in a few days with some good rest and a few long hot bathes, he was sure of it.  
  
The young man brushed it off and tried to go about his day.  
  
Later that afternoon Loki attempted his usual walk home only to be forced to stop and steady himself through a wave of dizziness. He'd skipped lunch again, that had to be it. He just couldn't keep a lot down recently, probably stress about the upcoming family gathering. His brother would be getting married n a few months time and of course, their mother was expecting Loki to attend the engagement dinner. Loki hated those sorts of things, he felt like he had to be someone else, someone better.    
  
He decided to take a cab home, it was a little expensive but well worth not having to stumble throughout the streets making himself an easy mark for a mugging.   
  
When Loki arrived home, he found a note from Kurt, always the considerate one, saying he'd gone to get them some dinner and would be back soon. It would save Loki from trying to cook anything - which he didn't feel up to at all.  
  
"Maybe…a glass of water." he said to the empty room as he dropped off his coat on a hook by the door. A glass of water and maybe a pain reliever of some kind. He could turn on the heat and have a quick hot shower, he’d feel better before Kurt came home with whatever he’d gone out to get. Loki quietly hoped it wasn’t anything with to much spice, he doubted his stomach could take it.   
  
Loki made it just inside the kitchenette when his vision blurred and suddenly he felt that maybe he'd taken this all too lightly. He tried to call out, not that there was anyone there to hear him, but found nothing but gibberish poured from his mouth. Randomly strung words that meant nothing as they came out intoned as slurred babble.  
  
That's when the fear came, fear and darkness as the world tilted and the floor beneath him fell away.

* * *

  
Kurt was just getting in, arms laden with bags of take away when he noticed an odd gurgling and thumping sound coming from the kitchen.  
  
"Loki…?" something just wasn't right, they would never be right again.  
  
The Young med student rounded the corner and saw his friend in the throws of a seizure on the kitchen floor. Limbs tensing and thrashing as the ravenette writhed.  
  
Wagner dropped the bags and sprung into action, rolling his flat mate onto one side to ride out the convulsions. All the while keeping an eye out and checking him over for any injuries. He had no idea how long Loki had been seizing or if it was more than one. Digging his phone out him swiftly dialed for emergency services. Still trying to make sure his friend would not injure himself against the cabinets in the narrow galley kitchen.   
  
After the episode ended there was a few terrifying seconds when Loki did not draw breath. Kurt knew this was common that it could take a few seconds post sized for the bodies functions to come back around, when they did the raven took a shallow breaths. That didn't make it any less terrifying until the other boy shuddered and began to breathe.  
  
"You’re going to be okay Loki, just stay still. Can you hear me?”  
  
Loki groaned and his legs twitched feebly, he mumbled realizing the cold wetness in his trousers from urine. He didn't understand what was happening or why. All He knew was this was embarrassing and painful; he didn't want anyone to see him like this. Unfortunate, it didn't seem like he had a choice in the mater right now.  
  
When the paramedics arrived, Kurt rode with them pocketing Loki's mobile on his way out. He didn't want the other man's family to have to hear of this from strangers or for the nurses to badger Loki in this state for contact information. Not that the former would have been able to articulate anything at the moment. 

* * *

  
Loki was still out having tests run by the doctors when his family arrived. Kurt was there to intercept them in the hall and get them moved to a family meeting room down the hall.  It was hard watch his friend’s mother cry, Loki's parents holding each other's hands in silence. Loki's two older brothers Thor and Balder stood awkwardly against the wall, the former on the phone with his wife and the later pensively chewing on his thumbnail.   
  
Kurt had some reprieve when his own partner arrived. Having heard the gruff voice getting into an argument at the nurses station.  
  
"Listen here bub! I don't care what you got on that little clipboard."  
  
"Logan…” he said stepping out of the room ready to dash down the hall toward the spiky haired brunette. He didn't even feel his feet carrying him forward until his face was buried in a broad chest.  
  
"Hey...he'll be fine, Loki's to damn stubborn to die. Prolly being a little priss right now bitchin about those assless paper dresses."  
  
Kurt wished it was that simple, but when he spotted solemn faced doctor proceeds into the room behind him. He knew, he knew by the pained cry of a woman's voice that was just audible through the thick wooden door that nothing was. Okay.

* * *

  
Glioblastoma multiform.  
  
That was the name of the cancerous tumor nestled deep within Loki's brain. Words like, grade 4, surgery, and treatment options- all swam around Loki as he lay there in the stiff hospital bed. Phrases he didn’t understand as people talked over him like he wasn’t even there. The way the nurses looked at him with such disgusting pity in their eyes.   
  
It didn't seem real, it couldn't be because just yesterday Loki had been making tea and joking with his roommate over some horrible reality TV going in the background. He wasn't sick because not even a few days ago he'd been working in the shop and packaging up an order of books for the local elementary. Sick people know their sick right?  Sure, there had been the headache but those were just headaches, everyone gets headaches. These doctors had to be wrong. This was all some kind of mistake.   
  
They weren't wrong though, they had it all there on the scans. Large and illuminated on the wall, there was a ghastly looking mass in his head. He should feel that shouldn't he? You can’t possibly walk around with something like that curled up in your cerebellum and not feel it. Not know that it’s in there spreading its deathly fingers out into your grey matter slowly killing you.  It seemed impossible.   
  
"Loki, sweetheart. Please look at me love." His mother spoke and held his hands. Her eyes were red rimmed and she was trying her very best to be strong for him. He could barely hear his father’s voice out in the hall arguing with the doctor.  
  
Odin's booming conjecture of "what do you mean that's all you do! In this whole building, there is not a single person who can help my son! I don't accept that!”   
  
If this was a dream, Loki wanted to wake-up.

 

* * *

  
There was no cure; they made sure he knew that. The surgical team would try their best, that's what the neurologist said, said he felt 'optimistic'. Loki did not, they were going to unscrew his skull and mess about in his brain for hours. He'd read the risks and the likely hood that he could come out of this worse, or not even come out of it.  
  
However, the alternative only gave him about four more months of progressively worsening illness and ultimately...death. This could buy him a year, maybe a little more and then who knew. Maybe he’d get one of those miracles that his mother often prayed for. Maybe he’d be visited by the angels she spoke of. Those bright shining beings that could take mercy on a poor sinner like him. He thought not though, not all the candles in the world that she could light for him would make a difference.   
  
Loki tried to smile for his mother before they took him away. She looked so broken when she had walked in on the nurses cropping off Loki's hair. They did not shave it though, after she left Thor came back in and took the clippers from the nurse. He just laughed as if he always did and joked that he had often thought of playing jokes like this when they were kids.  
  
"I knew you would have gotten me back something awful if I’d managed buzz your hair in the night." He said gently tilting Loki's head forward, bringing clippers up from the back of his scalp to the front.  
  
"You would have woken bald without eyebrows...maybe even pubic hair glued to your cheeks. I can be very creative when angry." Loki returned playfully.   
  
The two of them shared a laugh before going silent; the only sound was the shavers’ motor humming with every pass over the ravenette head. More and more locks of ink black hair falling to the pillow.   
  
"Thor... I'm afraid."  
  
His brother went quiet looking up at the ceiling with his lips pinched tightly. When Thor did look him in the eyes he could see the tears the older man was holding back. "I am too... I am too."

* * *

  
They were able to remove 63% of the tumor. It was good news, hopeful news and now they had a plan.  
  
Loki was still healing after the surgery, some of his motor functions were slow and clumsy but the doctors said they would come back.  
  
Next was radiation and chemo with some new drug called Temodar. The radiation burned and the drugs made him sick, but they said it would help. It was hard to think about that when he spent hours on the floor of the bathroom curled up in a fetal position.  
  
He had to move back home and quit his job and that was a low to the usually independent and proud young man. Even more so when his father or one of his brothers would have to carry him to the toilet or even help him bathe. As the months wore on and that first year passed- Loki was so tired, so emotionally broken from this and the progress had stopped. That deadly beast was still in his head and not backing down anymore. It was only a matter of time before it clawed back with a vengeance.   
  
Bills were piling up and he could see the strain it would was putting on others. He just could not do that anymore. Therefore, Loki, with the help of his brother Balder, looked into long-term care facility. When he found one he approved of he signed all the documents with his brother as his witness.  
  
Balder knew that Thor and their parents would be angry that he helped Loki do this, but he knew if the shoe was on the other foot he would feel the same way. He would not want to be a burden and he knew Loki had that same proud streak that ran through their father. There was no way Loki was going to stay here and let people who knew him watch as he faded into such a state.   
  
Not Loki who had always been so careful about his appearance, not the Loki who had always preened proudly. His little brother would never ask for help and became nearly irate when he actually did need it. This helplessness was even more deadly than the cancer.  Loki was his little brother and he'd always vowed to protect him, so if this was the only way he could help him now then he would.  
  



	3. I sure would like some sweet company

Bruce Banner wanted to be a doctor, though perhaps that was not his first choice. His first choice was to be a hero.

Like most young boys, he read about the caped crusaders and crime fighters for the greater good. Lost in the make believe worlds where good always triumphs over evil and the good guy gets the girl. He found solace in those colorful comic pages that took him away from the darkness around him. Away from the shouting, from the rough hands that grabbed, twisted, and struck. In those works, he could forget for a few fateful moments and daydream that he was among their number. That he two might become more, a big strong creature that could take the hits and never cry. Something fearless, something bigger than the man he looked up to with such terror.

More than that, Bruce wanted to save people. To be the one to take away the pain and fear because those were two feelings he knew so intimately.

Bruce wanted to be a physician and make a difference in this world, he truly did.

Unfortunately, his past would not let him go. Bruce had terrible anxiety and PTSD from the abuse he endured as a child. The terror and agony he had suffered at the hands of his own father had left scars far deeper than the ones on his skin. He could not take the busy environment and loud sounds associated with working in an ER or large hospitals. He certainly could not work with children who came into the trauma center. He tried, the first time he was in a group of other interns he lasted all of half an hour before he was panicking in a supply closet. It was not what he thought it would be, it was not like the teaching hospital or learning from cadavers. This was screaming and begging, this was the sound of instruments clattering to the floor as EMT’s rushed crash victims in with blood spilling and slicking up the floors. This was police bringing in battered fugitive who smiled with blood soaked teeth before spitting into a poor nurses face and screeching vulgar words.

He couldn’t do it.

Yet the med student wasn't willing to let go of his dream. It was then one of his advisors recommended an internship at a long-term care facility.

"It quiet, mostly older folks with a lot of medical issues. It’s more about keeping them comfortable through the progression of their disease. You would be helping people who need comfort. I think it would suit you."

It wasn't exactly where Bruce had seen himself working. However, when the shy young doctor walked through the soft blue painted halls of the center for the first time he felt the tension lessen from his spine. Entering a sunny day room where the patients who still had mobility gathered, he smiled watching them laugh and smile as they talked and played board games. A few of the older, folks sat at a row of computers against the wall having what looked like video chats with their children and grand children.

The thing that struck Bruce the most was that nothing about this place felt depressing. It didn't feel like a place where people came to die, rather a place to live.

He knew he made the right choice.

* * *

 

Just another typical Thursday morning at work. Bruce showed up at the reception desk to pick up the overnight files for his patients and check the admittance sheet. They always admitted on Thursdays, rooms and common rooms freshly cleaned the night before and the whole place shined and ready to welcome. Friday they always had activities set up for the residents. Admitting on Thursdays just made for a good first impression.

Today was a little different though as the staff was down one of their senior doctors. Hank Pym had worked there since the doors opened nearly 25 years ago. Bruce had promised Hank he’d cover him on the days the newest additions to the center, the older mans daughter was getting married today of the other doctors split up his charts for the day. It also gave Bruce a chance to see if there was anyone new to add to his weekly roster.

When you work in a place like this faces change, sometimes too often if Bruce was being honest. He had a soft heart and became fond of some of his patients. Banner did his best to remain distant from the losses but that was never 100% possible. The young doctor often felt torn when he knew there was nothing more he could do to comfort the facilities patients. Still, he wouldn’t trade the times that he could.

Just being there to talk with someone one on a bad day to listen to his or her stories and learn from them. Share with them. It was a different kind of healing.

Bruce flipped through the new chart and paused along the first few lines.

**Patient name: Loki Odinson**

**Diagnosis: End Stage Brain Cancer**

**Age: 26**

26... Bruce was only a few years older himself. It also occurred to him that this would make Loki the youngest patient here at the center. The more information he skimmed the more confused he became. It seemed that Loki had been living at home prior to an extended hospital stay of two weeks. Following this, instead of returning home Loki had signed himself over for long-term care. Bruce wondered why such young man like Loki wouldn't want to be with family. Surely being so young, Loki should have been surrounded by the people who love you the most would be more comforting that coming to a place with strangers and medical staff.

Although, he supposed it wasn't his place to judge. Everyone had different reasons, most people at the center didn’t have much family or what family they did have they didn’t wish to impose. They had grown children or grandchildren, some had been happy bachelors for years and in their illness discovered they could no longer manage alone and hospice care was less than ideal. There where even a few who had come to this country from over seas and wanted to spend their final days in a place they had worked so hard to come to rather than returning to their homelands.

Bruce admired the strength of the residents who were here and still kept a smile on their faces. He hoped Loki would be one of those. A fighter who maybe came here for the social aspect of living around others. Someone knowing that while they may not have much time, while they might need a lot of help, that they could still have a life.

The doctor walked down the hall flipping through pages, he had a few early morning check-ins along the way, when he had a chance he would go back to Loki’s file. Going over the documentation further - through the laundry list of medications for pain and symptom manage meant, as well as a basic outline for the personal care and hybrid for the nursing staff to follow. Bruce felt his heart tug thinking about the young man he hadn't even met yet.

That was about the change, and everything Bruce had ever known with it.

* * *

 

Bruce entered the room, the sound of a mans voice filled the air. An audio file of poetry, the words strung together in the beautiful cadence of a middle baritone. An odd choice perhaps for someone of Loki’s age, still it was interesting and Bruce found himself pausing in the door way just listening a moment.

As the stanza concluded, Loki reached out pausing the laptop on the desk beside him. He had been listening with his eyes closed and not noticed Bruce right away until the Doctor took a few tentative steps.

“Hello, I didn’t want to interrupt. I’m Doctor Banner.” Bruce said as he approached with a hand extended.

“Quite alright doctor, I find many don’t appreciate such things. The fact you do gives me hope for this place. I am Loki, though I suppose you already know that,” he said nodding to the file under the doctor’s arm.

Bruce nodded and pulled the file where he could hold it properly, “Yeah, I have to do my homework right? So, how are you feeling today?”

“Like I’m dying from brain cancer, so…about the same as yesterday.” Loki said with a flourish and a small smile tugging at his lips. “Very glamorous you know, so many soap program characters expire of a token brain tumor so I am in good company.”

“You’ll forgive me I don’t watch a lot of day time TV, I’m more of a science fiction kind of guy.” The doctor offered pulling a chair up to Loki’s bed as he looked over the readouts on the machines.

“Does that make you fond of probing?” Loki asked sitting up a bit. He did like to see how far he could push people.

Bruce snorted a laugh, “Only on Tuesdays .”

Yes, this doctor Banner would suit him just fine. “Pity, maybe next time.”

* * *

 

After his morning rounds, Bruce returned to the check in desk and filed the necessary paperwork to become Loki Odinson’s primary care doctor. Hank would just have to take the next one.

 


	4. It sure would be preetier with you

Loki loved books, he always had. Some people in his family might say he liked books more than he liked most people.  
  
In his mind, this was a fair enough trade off for human companionship.   
  
Books did not judge, they did not betray and most importantly - books gave more than they took. He could lose himself in the stories of fiction, tomes of history or pages of beautiful poetry.  Worlds painted by words where life was simpler and problems could be solved in a matter of pages. Wrongs righted in a few paragraphs, and truly, if a writer was skilled enough - a broken heart could mend in a single sentence.   
  
Books were infinitely kinder than the human condition, because when you reached the end ...you could always pick up another.  
  
It was hard when the one thing he loved began to slip away.

* * *

  
Imagine seeing a door in the distance, a door you desperately want to reach. Yet every step takes you farther and father away. You cannot understand it because you swore you were facing the door, you can see it there- just out of reach and yet no matter how hard you try you cannot get any closer. Your feet feel like led and slowly you realize... you are never going to make it. That this some terrible maze with invisible walls and countless dead ends. You can see the prize ... you can almost taste it but never ever touch it.  
  
That is how this felt for him.  
  
The words began to swim on the page and his eyes could not follow, try as he might the frustration from trying to make heads or tails of the sentences and where in the story he was just made him sick. That had been a dark day.  
  
Loki was never a man known for giving up, but something broke inside him when he flung a collection of Whitman across the room. The hard spine of the book slamming into the bedroom wall. It sounded like a gunshot and perhaps it felt like one as well. Like being shot straight through the heart.   
  
Pressing his shaking palms over his eyes and fighting back the tears and demands of why. He ground his teeth against the urge to cry out like a child.  Why did this have to happen to him? Why did it have to be so bad, why hadn't the surgery gone better. If they had been able to remove more of the tumor then maybe the radiation and the chemo would have taken care of the rest of it.  
  
Why.  
  
Why.  
  
WHY.  
  
Why did he have to die so pitifully?  
  
His mother began reading to him after that. Her calm melodic voice that turned and spun each word as if it we're made of gold. It made him feel like a child. Some times that was nice but then other times ... Other times it just made him feel useless. He was a grown man reduced to laying in a bed while his mother stroked his bare scalp and read to him. His eyes drifting in and out of focus with her words when the painkillers were a bit too much.  
  
 It was better to feel numb on those days, better than the alternative of painful headaches drowning her words to a dull roar. Worse, when he couldn’t hold back the truth of it and tears came, when he truly felt small and broken. Huddled against her chest while his father stood in the hall on the phone with the hospice nurse asking why Loki’s medications couldn’t at least give him relief, shouting at people for not doing their jobs. Worse, when Thor or Balder would carry him into the bathroom and sit on that horrid plastic chair in the shower while they tried to use the hand held sprayer with the water turned to hot, desperately trying to sooth painful muscle spasms.   
  
He hated every day of it, Loki wanted so desperately to have a few moments to himself even if those moments hurt.   
  
 It was his brother Balder who came up with the idea for Loki to try audio books.  It gave him back some control to pick and chose and listens whenever the mood struck. Loki did enjoy immerse himself into spoken words but even so- it wasn't the same.  
  
There is a sort of ritual with reading. Finding the perfect space that was secluded and quiet with just the right light so as not to strain ones eyes. Something holding a warm or bitterly cold to drink - depending on the time of year. The book it self, selecting the one to fit the mood you’re in or the exact opposite in order to pull your self away from your troubles. The weight of it in your hands, the feel of the cover or binding. A paperback versus a leather bound or hard cover. The smell of the ink and texture of the pages.  
  
He lost it; little by little, he lost other things too. Until this was all that was left.   
  
Laying in a bed listening to words that occasionally made no sense at all, drifting between the moments when his mind would shelter in a word of gossamer. 

* * *

  
Looking back on it now, as his hands trembled to close another finished file, Loki wondered how long it would be before he lost even this. How much more would his cancer take from him?   
  
How much could he let it take?

* * *

  
Bruce had taken to visiting Loki on Wednesday afternoons after his shift was over. The would talk about literature and some times play chess. Over these easy conversations, Loki opened up more and was able to talk about his condition. Even in a joking manner, Bruce listened closely for anything he might be able to help with.  
  
Some adjustments to medications or a word with nursing staff.  
  
More than that though, Bruce enjoyed these chats. Loki was intelligent and well read, his vocabulary was beautiful and his wit as sharp as a knife. It made the steady decline more pronounced when ravenette would pause mid sentence, searching for the right word and setting for another. Bruce never said a word about the stumbles. They both knew what it meant and simply pressed on.  
  
Who knew when they would no longer be able to have these long conversations?  
  
It was during one of these talks when Bruce decided to bring up something that had been weighing on his mind. Something that needed to be considered before it became too difficult.  
  
" I noticed that your  chart says visitors denied, can I ask why?" he knew it was a gamble to ask something so personal but over the last few week he and Loki had spent good bit of time together and honestly Bruce was worried about the younger man. No one should have to be separated from their family if possible, not under these kind of circumstances.  
  
Bruce could understand on some level what Loki's motivation could be. He'd seen many patients who push people away during difficult periods of illness. He just hoped that Loki would change his mind. Family support what therapeutic, not just for the patient but for their family as well.  
  
Loki paused, knitting his fingers together in his lap. "I don't want them to remember me this way. I can see the pity in their eyes when they look at me. I don't want that… I never wanted it. "  
  
The doctor looked down at his hands, of course, Loki was proud. It was easy to see that in the way the younger man held himself with such poise even in the face of pain. Bruce envied that in a way, he had never had such poise or grace, he was a wallflower and always just a bit on the awkward side. Yet here Loki was laying in a bed covered by thick blankets and still managed to hold his head at such a regal angle.   
  
Maybe that was the moment Bruce realized how beautiful Loki was.   
  
“I‘m not trying to change your mind, I‘m just saying that you might want to reconsider. Things…can change overnight and you don‘t want to leave anything unsaid.” He tried to be delicate, that was one thing he always strived for working here. It was best to keep an air of optimism with an ounce of realistic expectation. Bruce didn‘t want to say ‘see them before you die’, even if it was implied.   
  
Of course, it could apply to anyone - ’things change overnight’.  A completely healthy person could suffer a sudden aneurism, be killed in an car accident, slip and fall in their home. Things happened; in Loki’s case, he had an opportunity to know that his days had number. It could be months, weeks…or just days. Maybe the doctor was right.  
  
“How, do you do that?” Loki asked a small smile tugging at his lips.  
  
“Do what?”  
  
“How do care so much for people you have never met? I understand the sentiment… regrets, I just… didn’t want to deal with it. Selfish I know.” Loki did feel a little selfish but then again he supposed that had always been an aspect of his personality. He wanted much more than he had and he always fought so hard to get there, now he never would. It never occurred to him that other people were fighting too. That his family who stayed with him every step of the way might still want to keep trying. He thought he was saving them.   
  
Bruce pondered the question, “ In this line of work empathy is a necessary trait. On a more personal note…I like you, you’re smart and interesting and I can’t see anyone who has ever known you  not wanting to see you again.” That was a lot, Bruce wondered if he’d crossed some kind of line there. Sure he’d felt connected to different patients before but Loki was different. Maybe it was because they were so close in age that Bruce felt like he knew Loki.   
  
“You are a very kind man Bruce.” Loki smiled and it was a sweet slow smile that stretched over his face and turned up his thin lips causing lines to halo on his cheeks.   
  
The kind of smile that sunk to the pit of Bruce’s stomach and stayed there to long. “Thanks, I do my job well then.”  
  
“Is it just a job though? Why would you want to do this anyway?” Loki gestured weakly, “surround yourself with death and despair, care for those who can barely care for themselves?”   
  
It was a fair question, some people might accuse Bruce of Co-dependency or having a savior complex. That wasn’t it though, in the truest part of his heart, Doctor Banner knew why he wanted to help people. “Because I know what despair and pain feel like. I may not have known illness but I knew fear, I knew uncertainty - I think because I know those things it makes me a good doctor. I always wanted to help people, not necessarily to save them because I don’t have such an elevated sense of self to think I can save everyone. I wanted to help people because people matter, their pain matters. Even if I can take that away or ease it for them… then I have done them a service, and that matters.”  
  
Loki could tell there was a story there, a darkness that lingered behind dark hazel eyes. Bruce Banner was a very complex man with a very good heart. It was then that Loki knew that this man, as calm and unassuming as he may seem to so many other people, would mean so much in the life that Loki had left to live.   
  
“Thank you for your candor Bruce, I am glad that I had fortune to know you. I only wish it were under different circumstance.” Loki sagged a little into the bed feeling the fatigue rolling in again. “Perhaps tomorrow I will have a word about allowing some visitors.”  
  
Bruce nodded and stood up to check over his patients vitals once again, “I’ll let the day nurse know to bring the contact papers for you. Get some rest Loki.” 


	5. These feet weren't built to stay too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s been a long time since I updated here, I’ve been dealing with things. I also didn’t think many people would mind considering that, the response to this fic is lower than my previous Gamafrost offerings. Maybe the subject mater is too dark. I don’t know, any way here is the next installment for anyone still interested.

He was getting worse, everything was getting worse.  
  
 Loki couldn't count the nights he'd woken up in cold sweats hardly able to breath. That horrifying feeling that something was seated on your chest holding you down. Vaguely he recalled the old paintings of such trollish creatures perching on the chests of their sleeping victims. Demons in the night come to steal your soul.   
  
Demons weren’t real. They didn’t need to be because there were things that are far more hellish and people in the world.   
  
Lost in a wash of confusion - not knowing where he was or if he was even safe and for a few terrifying moments his broken brain supplied horrible paranoid delusions of being captured. The panic would rise with bile in his throat and his weak limbs were powerless to aid his flight to the bathroom. Leaving the ravenette crumpled on the floor, shaking in a puddle of vomit and tears. Such an undignified end to a man who had refused help even as a child when he was ill.   
  
Sometimes Loki could workout out then where he was; unfortunately, more often than not, the nurses would rush to his side and he fought them weakly, still lost in a haze of fear. Their helping hands perceived as violent attackers meaning him harm. He would shout obscenities and retch as his face flushed from effort. He would tier quickly and dissolve into pitiful sobs begging them to let go.   
  
Kindly hands and soft voices that reminded him of his mother would stroke his back and promise he was all right. There was a gentle and deceptively strong nurse in the evenings that would hold him against her heavy build, not caring of the sick soaking his front. She would rock him and make the other orderly step back until he’d calmed down. Sometimes in those weekend states of delusion, he would call her mother, clinging to the pastel scrubs and beg her to make the monsters go away.    
  
Worse still was a more recent occasion was when Bruce had been working an over night shift. Loki had been held by the kindly doctor as a gentle nurse cleaned his face and directed an orderly to change the bed sheets.    
  
Loki hadn’t been able to look Bruce in the eye the next day. 

* * *

  
The days were not much better, between fevers and weakness his day consisted of the bed and the walls around him. Drifting in and out of uneasy sleep...or was it unconsciousness. Loki thought it was likely the later, he considered maybe his brain was starting to give up the ghost. Part of him wanted it to just hurry the hell up. Just let it be over already, let the pain float away while he dreamed of better days or lands of fantasy.    
  
These thoughts led to more like them. Loki wanted this horrible struggle to be over once and for all. Everything hurt and really, why his stubborn body still was lingering. What in this life was tethering him here, as if his feet were sunken into concrete? Loki just wanted it all to go away. He didn’t deserve this.   
  
This thinking about wanting a way out doubles when he catches sight of himself in a mirror when a nurse cleans him. Intellectually Loki knew that his decline had physical effects. He wasn't stupid because he could feel the changes on his body and could see them first hand. However, point of view is all about perspective.  
  
The nurse had left the bathroom door cracked ever so slightly and had moved his bed to gain more room to place a small heater before guiding him through this embarrassing but needed ritual. Loki couldn't stand under his own volition anymore, and even sitting up was hard because his hands and arms chosen to disobey his wishes more often these days. So he lay there plait and compliant while he was moved and shifted.  
  
Her name was May, she was older and quiet and tried to be gentle as possible, she was kind so he did not begrudge her for it. His Insults would lack fire now anyway.  
  
It was after he was undressed that May stepped away to fill a basin with warm sudsy water that he saw himself.

* * *

  
something about this moment seemed slow and surreal, like falling into a Dali painting. Perhaps ‘The cross of St. john’ or ‘The burning giraffe’. Nothing but hard lines and deep shadows, the hard jutting V where his pelvic bones stood in high relief.  This couldn’t be real, this couldn’t be who he’d become.   
  
High cheekbones now seemed sharp as razors and his now dull green eyes sat deep in there sockets. His hair never had gown back fully. The fine black hair that lay flat on his scalp (Save for the scar from his surgery, which remained hairless). His stomach sloped in a concave valley under his ribs; while Loki had always been lean, he was never this. He’d run track in high school and excelled at the hurdles with his long legs.   
  
This body that lay here looking back at him was a stranger, an emaciated victim of some horrible tragedy. Yet the breaths matched his own and the trembling hand that clutched the plastic sheet was defiantly his.   
When May returned, she noticed her patients face now masked in agony and followed his gaze. The softhearted woman moved to close the bathroom door and shushed him with gentle hands. “It’s ok, you know the lighting in here is terrible sweetie.” she said, taking a hankie from her pocket and dabbing at Loki’s eyes.   
  
He held her wrists to have some sort of anchor as he wept. “I don’t want to die this way.” He said looking up into her aged face.   
  
She did not say anything, just held his hands and caressed his head before changing the subject smoothly. “How about a nice warm bath ok? I’m sure you will feel worlds better once you’re clean. I saw Doctor Banner earlier, he said he was going to go out during his break and bring you that ice cream you said you liked. Isn’t that nice of him?”   
  
Loki felt grateful to her for not allowing him to dwell in his despair. Soothing his broken body with warm water that smelled of lavender and sandalwood. Unlike other nurses who used the medicated soaps that had a far to sharp scent of mint - she always chose such soft decedent things that felt like silk on his dry tired skin.  
  
May brought the conversation to a kinder place, talking about her nephew who was starting high school in the fall and how excited he was. She would talk about her husband Ben and how stubborn he was. She just kept talking and engaging with him until he would smile and make some little quip that would make her laugh.   
  
After he was dressed and left alone with his thoughts Loki contemplated his future, or lack there of - he missed his mother, missed her face and her smiles. Listening to Ms. Parker talk about her family, Loki realized that he even missed his brothers and his father. As dysfunctional and infuriating they could be. They had been there when he needed them. He thought he was protecting them by distancing himself this way but perhaps Bruce was right, it wasn’t right to wait and leave them only a battered corpse to morn.   
  
However, the doctor hadn’t said it in such course terminology. The reasoning was sound nonetheless, and Loki wanted to see them one last time.  
  
  



	6. When I'm Gone

He had not slept well last night, his dreams were uneasy and there had been another seizer in the wee hours of the morning that left Loki feeling wrung out.

Afterwards he had lain there scowling at the tablet screen, he’d opened the gallery and let the photos cycle through. There were photos of his mother cooking, his Aunt Eir sipping wine on the deck while his brothers played with the dog. Photos of him when he was a teenager. So much angst in those days, thick black eyeliner and studded bracelets. One particular photo of him at 17 laughing with his head thrown back.   
  
“How was I ever that happy?”  He muttered and tapped the screen off.    
  
That wasn’t even that long ago, he hadn’t even had a chance to be a proper adult before all this happened. He was just starting to be his own man when it was taken away.    
  
Still he thought back to that photo, laughing on the sofa with his mother hugging his arm and big smile on her face. They always found the oddest things funny.  He missed her most. 

* * *

  
Loki wanted to see his family; however, he wanted something else first.   
  
He wanted a promise, a light at the end of this long dark journey that he'd found himself on. He just hoped he'd chosen wisely on whom to ask, because he only had one shot at this going smoothly. Maybe it was selfish but Loki always had been a little selfish, in a time like this he felt he had to be. He came into this world alone and he would ultimately leave it alone. He wanted to have some say in that.   
  
"Bruce, may ask a favor of you?"  
  
The doctor had been all smiles when Loki said his family would be visiting for the next holiday- just a few weeks away. He knew Loki was putting it off but still, Bruce was determined to keep the young man healthy as possible and in high spirits for the upcoming visit.  
  
"Sure, anything."  
  
Loki hesitates looking to the open door where staff and residents alike mulled through the halls. "It is private matter would you mind " he began and gestured toward the door.  
  
Once the entrance was safely, sealed Bruce perched on the side of his patient’s bed. He knew it was wrong but over the last few months he'd grown fond of  Loki, he'd even go so far as to say he was attracted to the man. There had been nights Bruce cursed himself for some moral breach in doctor\ patient decorum. The nights he’d shed a few tears realizing that the one person he cared so much for, had no idea. Moreover, was dying. It didn't seem fair. Still, he managed to put on a smile each day and do his best to make that day and every other day that Loki had better than the last. That was all he could as bitter sweet as it was. Bruce knew it was better to set his own growing feelings aside. Something like that would be bad for the both of them.  
  
"Ok it's just us. What can I do for you?"  
  
Loki's tongue poked out and wet his dry lips; there was no easy way to approach this. "I… have come to a conclusion about how my life will ultimately end. Which, knowing the nature of my...."(the word floated away and he paused to search for another. This was why he couldn't let this continue. How long before all of his words, were gone?)  "My, sickness. I know how this will...progress. You see it to and my ... my family will see it. I want to understand when I go I want to still know the world I leave. What I want is help. Do you understand?"  
  
"Loki I can see about maybe a more aggressive treatment r maybe holistic medicine to promote cognitive."  Bruce started to say but was silenced by a thin hand rising on his arm. "That’s not what you mean by help. Is it?"  
  
"No, it's not. I want to die with some dignity Bruce; will you help me do that?"  
  
He knew what Loki was asking and Bruce felt that little pie of his heart crack and crumble away as the words flared into the air. In this place it was an unfamiliar request, intellectually Bruce knew that, yet... o one had ever asked that of him. Now here was this young man, a man who by all rights should have a full life ahead of him. This Intelligent witty young man... was asking him for help dying.  
  
"Loki I... I, I'm sorry I…” Bruce felt his throat closing a he stood and backed away. "I should go, and... Just… just think about this… see your family Loki. I'm sorry." and he fled.  
  
"Bruce please!" the plead couldn't catch the good doctor as he made his hasty retreat.  
  


  
  
Bruce did not comeback that evening to check on Loki; in fact, he didn't even stay the rest of the day. The young physician found himself so deeply disturbed that he just needed to distance himself.  
  
Even in the sanctuary of his little apartment, Bruce couldn't get those words out of his head. How could Loki ask him that? How could he just give up?  
  
Bruce dug through his bag of work he brought home and found Loki's file. There had to be something he could do.  
  
 Bruce spent the remainder of the evening pouring over internet research and medical journals. He called a few old friends from medical school and got in touch with oncology surgeons. Someone had to have something, some new drug, some new surgery, some sort of miracle out there just waiting.  
  
Sometimes real life will not give you miracles, and the happy ending is a bittersweet one. All the doctors said the same thing. There was nothing they could do, even with the more experimental treatments - Loki wasn't strong enough to be a good candidate. They all solemnly shook their heads and told Bruce there was nothing they could do. They wished him luck.

" You're a good man to try this hard for him. This young man is lucky to have found a friend like you." Dr. Xavier said.  The words were kind but they didn't fix anything.  
  
Loki was still dying and Bruce was still hopeless to stop it.  
  
"I can't..." he said to the darkness around him. Head in his hands. "I swore... do no harm. Don't those words mean anything? It's murder... I would be killing him. How could I do that?  How could anyone do that?"

* * *

  
  
Loki’s brothers had come up early for the visit. Bruce remained around the fringes of the ward, watching and hoping the visit might lift the young mans spirits. According to the staff, it hadn’t.  
  
With out helped Loki seem to have devised his own plan, he had been refusing food and the staff is saying it may be the end. They had seen this kind of behavior before, in Loki’s state…well it was going to be painful, and with the legalities the intelligent young patient had in place - they could do nothing to intervene.  
  
Bruce couldn’t stand the thought of Loki just curled up in bed in pain, so many of his medications would react poorly on an empty stomach. His first vows as a doctor had been to do no harm, so what was he to do?   
  
It was like standing between a raging fire and a pit of spikes. Go left…you die, go right. You die.  Only it wasn’t his own life in the balance and perhaps that was made it worse.   
  
As a last ditch effort Bruce decided to go and see Loki maybe try to reason with him. Try to get though to him that life is worth trying for, what if there's a cure, what if he could live longer, shouldn't he keep fighting for the sake of others in his position?   
  
That conversation did not go well.   
  
“So you think me selfish? Perhaps I am, do you know how this hurts? Do you know that it burns me to even admit it?” Watching Loki break down, the doctor felt his own heart breaking.   
  
“Your not, I just… my whole life I wanted to help people. I wanna help you.” Bruce knew that he shouldn’t, knew that he was crossing a line when he climbed onto the bed and held Loki.   
  
“Then help me let go. I’m so tired Bruce, I just want to let go.”  
  


* * *

  
There are all manner of Shaman and Guru who talk of clarity, of enlightenment, of that magic moment when the answer just comes.   
  
Bruce didn’t feel light by this answer, if anything it felt like chains around his neck. A heavy thing that he may always carry, yet…he would do so gladly.  “Ok..Ok…” 

* * *

  
That night stayed and made sure Loki ate, two days later Loki’s parents would show up at the center. They seemed like nice enough people, Loki’s father was a difficult man to read, his mother was warm and it was easy to see the heartbreak in her eyes when she helped her boy.   
  
It wasn’t right that parents should have to bury a child. It was clear in the look in Frigga’s face that she knew, she knew as she sat there at her baby boy’s bed side and held a straw for him to drink  that this was last time she’d see him.   
  
Bruce could see that and it shook him to his core, the young doctor found himself hunched over his steering wheel in the parking lot that evening, that image burned into his mind. He thought of his own mother, his cousin, his aunt.    
  
Most of all, he thought of Loki, and he knew one think for sure.  He had done the one thing a doctor should never do, he’d fallen in love with a patient.  It was that love that was going to change everything Bruce Banner thought he was capable of.   
  
  
  



	7. You're gonna miss me when I'm gone

Bruce would have put it off if he thought he could. However, that would not be fair to Loki. His patient had lost more weight because of the weakness and nausea. This was typical for someone in end stage cancer. If Bruce had to guess, Loki could possibly live another 4 months maybe 5. It was the nearly zero quality of that time that made Bruce realizes why Loki asked this of him.   
  
Why anyone would ask this.   
  
As the autumn months grew colder, the young man grew weaker. Loki could no longer walk and the motor function in his hands was gone. He was suffering and often cried when he would forget words mid-sentence. His current speech was disjointed at best now. Bruce could see the pain in those intelligent green eyes. The loss of his words had been crushing.   
  
Bruce tried his best to be there and show encouragement, trying to be the good doctor and friend, but that became so painful because it just made him love this man even more. Made him stay up nights fighting the constricting sorrow that bubbled up in the doctor’s chest.   
  
The plea began to circle back in his mind and tap gently on his moral code. Those lingering thoughts of “what if it was me? What would I want really?”  If he were honest with himself, he wouldn’t want this. He thought of his mother, how she laid in a hospital bed for seven days before they pulled the plug. How she looked when they finally let him see her, after his father was locked away for what he’d done.  Bruce reasoned that was different. She was already gone; it was all just the machines. Still…even if she hadn’t been completely gone what kind of life would that be? She wouldn’t have been his mother anymore, not really.  It’s all so complicated and mixed up in his head and he’s just not sure where these thoughts are taking him.   
  
The bottom line being that he’s already agreed and now Loki is waiting. Loki is trusting him and he can’t go back on this now. Therefore, he had to figure out how.  
  
Dr. Banner sat up in bed looking over viable options. It would need to be painless and non-detectable. Fast acting would be better or a sedative combination. It all felt so morbid to be reading up on ways to die painlessly.  
  
"This is the only way I can help him." Bruce told himself.  Still it hurt. He thought fondly back to those late spring days when he sat in the courtyard with Loki and talked about poetry and philosophy.  He remembered not long after the evenings when the younger man would lie in pain and only Bruce was permitted into the room  
  
He remembered holding Loki's hand for hours. The weight of it, the texture of his skin. "I think I loved him then...no, I know I loved him then. Damn... Damn…”  
  
Bruce scrubbed his hands through his curls and felt the shuddering agony of loss shake through his core. "Damn it."

* * *

  
The next morning coming to work took much longer than it should have. He wasn’t sure if it was taking the scenic route or the fact that he sat in his car for a good 10 minutes before coming in. Even then, Bruce was dragging his feet about his morning rounds. He’d have to go see Loki, he’d have to have the conversation that had been turning in his head all morning and most of the night.  
  
  
 "You’re lingering...not…attractive." Loki tried to offer the doctor a crooked smile.  
  
Bruce had passed the length of the room nearly 5 times and was now staring out the window like a homesick puppy.  
  
"Yeah, sorry." he rubbed the back of his neck trying to find the words. He couldn't back out now but still. This all felt too... final too…dark. "Is there anything...I mean, well?"  
  
"Last …requests? Yes, I have. Some."   
  
The young doctor returned to his patient’s side and took Loki's hand. "Anything you want, you know I’ll try and help you."

* * *

  
Loki’s desires were simple - he asked to have one day to do, as he likes with no medications.   
  
First, Bruce helps Loki to see the garden. Something about nature even with the chill of fall was a still beautiful. The trees had started to turn that week and the entire courtyard was a treasure of gold and amber leaves. Some of the heartier little flowers like the purple pansies still remained. There little violet faces turned up to the afternoon sun.   
  
“Always. Loved. This.”  Loki said, reaching out one of his shaking skeletal hands to brush against the wavy leaves of a holly bush.  
  
Bruce thought how elegant Loki must have looked a few years ago, decked out in a jet-black suit and winter coat. He saw a photo of the younger man’s room of how his patient looked before his illness. Bruce was ashamed to say that the smiling face surrounded by wavy raven locks had brought a blush to his cheeks.   
  
The doctor cursed himself for thinking about what had been and looked down to Loki no – that man was still there lingering in those shining eyes and mischievous smiles. Bruce just wished there was more time.   
  
They walked through the gardens and Bruce offered little tid bits of information here and there. He’d always been interested in all forms of biology and studied plant and insects as a sort of hobby. Most people would have laughed at his random knowledge but Loki seemed to appreciate it.   
  
Stopping at a stone bench toward the back of the clinic, and away from prying eyes, Bruce completed the next favor asked of him. Taking out a box of cigarettes and placing one between Loki’s thin lips.   
  
“I’d say this was a nasty habit but somehow you make it look it good.” He said with a smile as he sparked a lighter and cupped his hand to protect the fragile little flame from the breeze.   
  
Loki nodded taking his first drag of sweet nicotine in ages. “It’s. a …gift.”   
  
The doctor shrugged and tugged out one of the smokes for himself, he hadn’t had one in since college and even then it was mostly a social thing. He never felt that draw to the them as many of his peers. Maybe he was lucky that way.   
  
 After a while of just sitting, taring up their lungs and enjoying the sun. Loki tentatively reached over and Bruce took his hand. Somewhere he wondered if this scene would have looked like a first date if not for the wheel chair with its IV pole. Bruce wanted to think it would, wanted to envision this moment in central park with children playing and the sound of city life muffled through the trees.   
  
Maybe…in another life. 

* * *

  
After their afternoon excursion, Loki asked watch his favorite film, it wasn’t some highbrow foreign film that Bruce had expected. It was actually Harry Potter. While Loki was occupied with his film Bruce went about his rounds. When he was done he slipped out pick up a few things.  Hospital food isn’t exactly appetizing at best and he felt Loki deserved a real sit down dinner for once. So armed with a bottle of wine, a little candle and some takeaway he returned.  
  
Their dinner date was fairly amusing, at least form Loki’s point of view.   
  
“So…. charming. Bruce,”   
  
The doctor flushed and set out their food on a little side table. “I hope you like Brazilian food.”  
  
Loki couldn’t eat much, he did however sip at the wine while Bruce talked about the food, Bruce had been to south America several times. Loki was silently impressed about how well traveled the other man was. It made him look closer at the good doctor and wonder what could have been.  
  
He’d always found it difficult to find someone like Bruce. Maybe the person he used to be would have even passed by the mild mannered doctor without a second glace. Loki felt a little guilty because of that, he used to be so closed minded and driven that he often overlooked those around him.   
  
In a way, he thought that maybe if all of this did have a purpose – he’d like to believe that it was so he could meet Bruce Banner.  
  


* * *

  
Bruce didn’t go home after their dinner, he pretended to of course. He clocked out and drove around the building parking his car was he knew the security cameras hadn’t worked for ages. He waited until the other evening staff had left and reentered the building through the maintenance door. Loki insisted that he be careful because he never wanted anyone to accuse Bruce of anything and possibly ruin the man’s life.   
  
The doctor wasn’t worried about that. Patients at the facility passed everyday, truthfully, the staff knew that the ones they cared for didn’t have long; it wasn’t their jobs to think about that. The only had to make those final days worth living. Bruce hoped he had done that today, he hoped that this last day was everything Loki had been missing and that in some small way …. Loki would be happy and ready.   
  
 Loki was waiting for him, his favorite scarf draped around his neck. Frigga had made it for him when he went off to college; it was gold and green, soft to the touch and still held a lingering scent of her perfume.   
  
“Hey. I guess, this is it. I promise you won’t feel any pain and  no one saw me so.. Yeah.” Bruce wasn’t sure how this conversation was supposed to go.   
  
The frail man before him held out a hand and beckoned him closer, “One… more thing?”  Loki asked, a slight rose coloring his hollow cheeks.  
  
“Sure, anything you need or if you want more time I..”  
  
“No, no more time. Just…”  Loki twisted the ends of the scare in his slender fingers, he wondered if it was wrong to ask. Part of him didn’t care, he had some idea that the doctor looked at him a certain way. That maybe it was all right even if it was selfish. “Kiss me?  It‘s ..Been  long time. Years, sorry to ask. ”  
  
He didn’t have to ask, when Loki lifted his head Bruce was there, taking his chin ever so gently and meeting his lips. It was a tender warm thing that seemed to fill every vein with calm warmth. He hadn’t felt this alive in so long.   
  
Slim fingers wound in the doctors curly hair and held him close, Bruce poured every ounce of his heart into that kiss. He wanted to sear this feeling on his very soul and hold onto it for as long as he lived. Even after Loki was gone, he’d have this, this bittersweet moment that tasted like tears. He wouldn’t trade it or wish it on anyone else.   
  
There is something truly life changing in feeling absolute love and sorrow all at the same time. It breaks you and unmakes you before knitting back together again. Even when your whole you know that there is a tiny part missing, but maybe that was ok. He could give up that one little part for Loki.   
  
  
  
“I’m ready.”   
  
  
  
  



	8. Epilogue

It didn’t feel like it had been five years.   
  
Yet… it did. Time is funny like that; you close your eyes and wake up so much older and wiser. In a blink, so much can be lost or gained; you look back at photos and watch them fade thinking - where did that person go?  This is not such a bitter thought, not always, sometimes you look around at the life you’ve made and manage to smile. Not because you’re pleased to not be where you were, but so happy that you came from there.   
  
So much had changed since that night five years ago. Still, Bruce always came here, maybe not as often as he used to, but he still made the drive out from the city at least twice a year. He still smiled and stopped by that little shop outside of town and picked up red roses, one for every year and tied them up with a green silk ribbon. He always had them make out a card as if someone would read it.   
  
To: Loki   
From: Bruce   
With Love   
  
Once the old woman at the counter smiled and asked if it was for an anniversary present and what a lucky person ‘Loki’ must be. He didn’t have the heart to correct her, just smiled and said, “I’m the lucky one.”   
  
You never really forget your first true love. Be you 16 or 70, their face will have a sharpness and clarity in your mind like nothing else. 

* * *

  
Bruce walked up the hill and down the familiar winding path, past the towering oaks with there leafless branches and the fountains filled with ice.   
  
He stopped at medium height granite headstone that stood out jet-black against the first snow of winter. Brushing the gathered flakes and frost from the groves of the elegant engraving, he smiled.   
  
“Hey Loki. It’s been a while.”   
  
Bruce went through the motions of shaking out the brass vase and settling the flowers in place. Although, he knew they wouldn’t last long in this cold. Some bittersweet irony about that settled around his heart.   
  
The first time he’d visited the grave Bruce had broken down like a child and cried. He knelt there on the cold freshly tilled earth and sobbed out his anger at how unfair the world was. There was a lot he had to say that day, a lot of ‘I loved you’ and ‘why did have to go’. That first year he’d been so angry and felt so guilty. He quit working at the facility and took a low paying job at a bookstore, part of him thought about leaving the country all together but then….he wouldn’t be able to come here.    
  
Over time things changed, he found a way to forgive himself and just fate in general. The next time he even thanked Loki for changing his life and told him that he was going back to finish his degree.   
  
Bruce would come back with updates about his classes, how he was smarter than nearly everyone was and had been asked to join a research team. He’s sit there on the ground for hours just talking about his life and nearly able to picture those green eyes and sly smiles.   
  
He even told Loki when he met someone new, saying “We’re just friends of course.”   
  
That wasn’t the same now.   
  
“Tony asked me to move in; I think you’d have liked him because you’re both very opinionated and high maintenance. Maybe that’s my thing, bratty smart guys with daddy issues.” Bruce laughed and looked around at the other graves; another had joined Loki’s from his last visit.   
  
Beloved Wife and Mother.   
  
“You’re with your mom; I’m sure mines going to talk her ear off too. I’m sure they’ll get along great. You’ll have to tell me one day how you keep them in line.” He choked up a little and wiped at his eyes. This never would get easier, even if it hurt less.   
  
Bruce reached out and ran his hand over the smooth granite, “I told him about you, honestly you ah… you kinda helped me because Tony knows how this feels actually. We’re going to Arlington next week so I can meet someone who was special to him. I would have brought Tony here today but… I guess I’m just not ready yet. So if you see a Steven Rogers up there, be nice ok?”  
  
He stood there for a while just thinking, “I never really got to say goodbye you know. I thought about that last night, I ran it repeatedly in my head about that night. I never said goodbye.  Come to think of it, we didn’t say anything did we. I just held you and watched you close your eyes and smile. I just held you until it was over and I left.” The tears came, slow and steady.   
  
“I think I can now. I think it’s finally time.”   
  
The air dropped a few degrees and the clouds gathered in a blanket about as the snow began to fall again  
  
“Goodbye Loki”  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I just want to say thank you for those of you who came along on this very difficult journey. I will admit this was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to write and yet…. It is almost cleansing if that makes sense. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this subject when I started and I can’t say if I’m for or against it, but I can say that I now have open eyes to both sides of that argument and at the end of the day I believe in the freedom of choice. I believe in respecting the pain of others. I have no idea how I would feel in this situation, and I have so much respect for anyone dealing with a disease like this or a loved one going through this and my heart and my soul goes out to those people. You are so strong and I hope you continue to be strong. I hope this story has meant as much too all you of you as it has to me.


End file.
